Tracing the Tribe is a blog about Jewish genealogy - All the developments, tools and resources you'll need to peer more closely into your family tree. Created in 2006 at JTA's request, it is now independent.

19 October 2008

A woman with deep Sephardic roots in Spain, Cuba, and the Canary Islands will dedicate three Torah crowns to her home-away-from-home synagogue in Berlin, on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, as related in this Staten Island Live story.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Esther Rodriguez of St. George will play a meaningful role in Berlin next month as the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht is observed, but her story begins much earlier than that terrible night in 1938 that ushered in the Holocaust.

In 1536, her family fled the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal to avoid a forced conversion from Judaism, or its alternative: Death.

Her mother's family settled in Cuba; her father's, in the Canary Islands. Ms. Rodriguez was born in Cuba, where her family did not live as Jews. For years, she did not know her history. Although she said her family was "as Cuban as could be," she later realized many of their traditions were Jewish. Even her father's name, Abreu, means Hebrew in Portuguese.

In 1961, Ms. Rodriguez was among 14,500 children flown out of Cuba -- without their parents -- following the Communist takeover. A great-aunt in Miami opened her home to Ms. Rodriguez and seven cousins. She was reunited with her parents four years later.

Ms. Rodriguez moved to Staten Island in 1985 and converted to Judaism in 2003 in Borough Park, Brooklyn. She now attends services at Congregation Toras Emes in Oakwood and Temple Emanu-El in Port Richmond.

A radio journalist for the United States government, she travels frequently to Berlin and Geneva. In Berlin, she prays at Adass Jisroel, a yeshiva and synagogue opened in the 1800s by a New York rabbi.

Adass Jisroel was one of 92 Berlin synagogues targeted during Kristallnacht; 35 of its 36 Torahs were burned. The synagogue reopened after the fall of the Berlin Wall; its new rabbi brought two Torahs from Israel.

In April 2007, Rodriguez donated a third Torah to the congregation in memory of her mother, Aida Fernandez de Varona, who died the previous month. The congregation had three Torahs, but no crowns. Her two congregations helped her purchase two silver crowns and a friend whose family fled Leipzig on Kristallnacht bought a third. The crowns will be dedicated at Adass Jisroel on November 7, just before Shabbat begins.

About Me

Schelly Talalay Dardashti has tracked her family history through Belarus, Russia, Lithuania, Spain, Iran and elsewhere. A journalist, her articles on genealogy have been widely published. In addition to genealogy blogging (since 2006), she speaks at Jewish and general genealogy conferences, co-founded GenClass.com. Past president of the five-branched JFRA Israel, a Jewish genealogical association, she is a member of several professional organizations.

Tracing the Tribe: 2011's Best 40 Blogs - Heritage Category

Tracing the Tribe: 2010's Best 40 Gen Blogs: Heritage Category

Tracing the Tribe is #10

Tracing the Tribe "Best for Jewish Researchers"

RootsTech 2012 - Official Blogger

RootsTech 2011 Blogger

FGS 2011 - Official Blogger

Jamboree 2011 - Speaker/Blogger

Mirror Site

Tracing the Tribe's mirror site will not be updated as technical problems seem to have been resolved. Readers using Internet Explorer and still seeing error messages may wish to subscribe via email alerts or download Mozilla Firefox.

NOTICE TO SPLOGGERS

You may NOT use the contents of this site for commercial purposes without explicit permission from the author and blog owner. Commercial purposes includes blogs with ads and income generating features, and/or blogs or sites using feed content as a replacement for original content. Full content usage is not permitted. To ask for permission, write to ask AT tracingthetribe DOT com